COVID-19: Daily cases expected to stabilise at 3,000 within a week - Health DG

PUTRAJAYA: The Ministry of Health (MOH) expects the number of COVID-19 daily cases in the country to stabilise at 3,000 within a period of one week.

Health director-general, Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said after this period, the ministry would review the need to extend the Movement Control Order (MCO) for another two weeks.

"The expected number of daily cases a week ago was due to exposure to the virus during the incubation period and now the cases could be detected.

"The cases are increasing although we’ve implemented the MCO 2.0 on Jan 13 but the result has yet to be seen,” he said at the news conference on the developments of COVID-19, here, today.

He said the MOH also expected an increase in the number of cases in the next two to three days.

Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham said implementation of the MCO nationwide except Sarawak was following the surge in cases including in Klang Valley due to cross-district and cross-state travel and activities.

He said the MOH would look at the developments in the next one or two days before looking at the need to tighten the MCO including in the economic sector.

On the on-going spread of the viral infection at the detention depots and prisons involving prisoners and the staff, Dr Noor Hisham said this was due to congestion and transfer of detainees to the courts or prisons.

He said that up to Jan 18 (yesterday), there were 28 clusters reported during the third wave of outbreak and out of this number, 20 were from index cases and seven reportedly from targeted screening.

“From the figure, 14 clusters involved prisoners as the index cases, five clusters involved prison officers while two involved police personnel.

“Up to Jan 18, 53,357 screenings have been conducted, with 16,692 cases found to be positive,” he added.

-- BERNAMA